Bikers ride across a stream along the Cherry Creek Trail at the Arapahoe Road Trailhead at Cherry Creek on April 13, 2017, in Centennial. The Arapahoe County Bike and Pedestrian master plan is accepting public comment right now, but planners are already acting on some of the items that will be detailed within it, including adding connections to the new bike path along E-470.

With years of planning experience, Tom Tobiassen knows: If you don’t advocate for things you want to see in your community when long-term plans are being drafted, it’s much tougher to push for those things later.

Officials began gathering public input on the plan — the first of its kind for the county — last spring. The goal is to identify the existing bike and pedestrian trails, lanes and other facilities in the county and suggest improvements that will make the county more walkable and bike-friendly, according to the plan website, arapahoebikeped.com. Weighing public input and statistical analysis, the finalized plan will prioritize projects and present a phased plan for their construction, identifying possible funding sources along the way. If approved by the county commissioners this summer, it would become part of the county’s comprehensive plan.

“It’s becoming more important and more municipalities are creating facilities,” said Ray Winn, the master plan project manager. “It’s been kind of in a vacuum and if you look at it broadly, they’re not really linked by any cohesiveness. It was becoming a critical mass of need and we wanted to have a document that could guide us going forward and also prioritize where the missing gaps and links are.”

The draft plan is available for online comment through the end of April. A final public meeting on the plan will be from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., April 25 at the Aurora Municipal Center, 15151 E. Alameda Parkway.

Tobiassen formed Bicycle Aurora in 1998 to advocate for bike lanes, trails and other facilities in the city. He recommends people who care about walking and cycling connections do not pass on the chance to weigh in now.

“These master plans are critical,” he said. “If you’re not at the table when they’re drawing lines on napkins then you’re not going to have as much influence. We need this to become part of the comp plan, because the comp plan usually becomes law.”

Simon Hawkings, who recently moved to Arapahoe County from Illinois, said he has been disappointed with the lack of trail connections in the area. He wanted to walk from his home in eastern Centennial to Cherry Creek State Park, but could not access the Cherry Creek Trail from his neighborhood, so he drove to the Arapahoe Road Trailhead.

“It’s a shame there is a not a more direct route to the park through the neighborhoods on the north side of Arapahoe,” he said. “At this point, it’s probably best just to drive to the park.”

Winn emphasized that by producing a plan that prioritizes certain projects as regional connections, it makes those projects more likely to be awarded grant funding, whether it comes from the federal government, the county open space grant program or elsewhere.

Updated April 19, 2017, at 10:01 a.m.Because of a reporting error, the start time of the public input meeting in Aurora April 25 was originally misreported. It begins at 5:30 p.m.

Joe Rubino focuses on consumer news for The Denver Post. He wrote for the Broomfield Enterprise, Boulder Daily Camera and YourHub before joining the Post's business team in 2017. A Denver native, he attended Kennedy High School and the CU journalism school. He once flew a plane for 30 seconds on assignment.